They were the first women in media to sue for sex discrimination. And their landmark case would not only propel the women's liberation movement, but would also irrevocably change the media industry.

Among their ranks stood Lynn Povich, whose book about the case, "The Good Girls Revolt" (Public Affairs; $25.99), was released earlier this month. "We were all very nervous," Povich says of waiting in line to sign the legal complaint to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. "Like Nachshon, the first person to put their foot in the Red Sea before they knew it would part, we didn't know what would happen."

Women at Time, Life, the New York Times and other publications would soon follow suit.

The ACLU announcement was timed to a T: Newsweek's cover that morning, fresh from the press, showed the figure of a woman breaking through the female gender symbol, arm raised in triumph. "Women in Revolt" cried the headline for a story about the women's liberation movement gaining traction.

Newsweek's own revolt had been brewing secretly for the better part of a year. The women's lib cover was an opportune moment to get the press' attention and demand action from male editors who took pride in running a liberal magazine.

Povich grew up "in a traditional family in the '50s," in Washington, D.C., daughter of famous Washington Post sports journalist Shirley Povich. One of her two brothers, Maury, is the well-known talk-show host.

Her family's expectations, and her own, were that she do well in school and work until she got married and had kids. But watching her father work, "it seemed to me that being out in the world interviewing people was far more interesting than being a housewife," she says.

After graduating from Vassar, she set her sights on Paris. Her father helped get her an interview at Newsweek, and she took a secretary position in the Paris bureau before relocating to New York to work as a researcher.

Newsweek in the 1960s was like a scene out of "Mad Men," minus the chic, Povich says. "We didn't have martinis in the office, and the men didn't dress as well." But, like in "Mad Men," "there was a lot of sex going on, mostly consensual."

"We had basketball and Nerf guns, and went out to the bars. It was a lot of fun," she says of the office culture. "And yet there was this system where women were in lower jobs, office wives so to speak."

Women generally began their Newsweek tenures as mail girls, graduating to clippers (who cut out and distributed relevant articles to those higher up), researchers and, occasionally, reporters if they proved themselves. But men did the writing.

"They were the artists, and we were the drones," said Nora Ephron. The renowned author, screenwriter and director - who recently passed away - worked as a Newsweek mail girl before landing her first writing job at the New York Post.

As Povich recounts in her book, "Any aspiring (female) journalist who was interviewed for a job was told, 'If you want to be a writer, go somewhere else - women don't write at Newsweek.' "

But Povich was an exception to Newsweek's rule. Her editor, Harry Walters, tired of writing about fashion in 1969, and he suggested that Povich be promoted to junior writer to do so in his stead. But the glass ceiling remained very much intact.

After the historic press conference, Newsweek management immediately entered into negotiations with the women. On Aug. 26, 1970, an agreement was signed - five months after the complaint was filed, and 50 years to the day that women were granted the right to vote.

In September 1975, Povich became Newsweek's first-ever female senior editor. She left Newsweek in 1991 to head Working Woman and later worked as a managing editor and senior executive producer for msnbc.com.

It wasn't until she was going through the lawsuit papers in 2007, and preparing to donate them to Radcliffe's archives, that Povich realized she had to write a narrative.

"It's such an important story that shouldn't be lost," Povich says, and much work needs to be done to end subtler forms of sex discrimination still prevalent in the workplace.

The book has brought some of the original 46 back together for reunions, along with younger women who work for Newsweek. "Many of us have said (the lawsuit) is the most important thing we've ever done," says Povich. "Celebrating it is terrific."

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